Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Thursday 12/16/2010)

What’s Holding You Back From Your Answer?

Mark 7:25-30 (New Living Translation)

²⁵ Right away a woman who had heard about him came and fell at his feet. Her little girl was possessed by an evil spirit, ²⁶ and she begged him to cast out the demon from her daughter. Since she was a Gentile, born in Syrian Phoenicia, ²⁷ Jesus told her, “First I should feed the children—my own family, the Jews. It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.” ²⁸ She replied, “That’s true, Lord, but even the dogs under the table are allowed to eat the scraps from the children’s plates.” ²⁹ “Good answer!” he said. “Now go home, for the demon has left your daughter.” ³⁰ And when she arrived home, she found her little girl lying quietly in bed, and the demon was gone.

            As I sat today and meditated on some areas in my life that I knew needed answers, I was confused a bit by why they had not been answered. I thought about what the Word of God said concerning those areas and I thought I was following, what His word instructed me to do. Tonight in Bible study, our Bishop covered the four areas that God uses to build our character, the first area was adversity I wanted to cry, because I have seen my fair share of those days and I was praying for some relief. The second area was betrayal, well by this point I wanted to scream because He was no longer just in my lane but He was driving over me and low and behold when he got to number three if my mouth did not want to hit the floor, and I literarily had to hold myself from not bursting into tears when He said God will often make us “wait” to build character; God does it because He wants to ensure we are not in it for the wrong reasons and that we are going to still worship and serve Him, even if He makes us wait.  The last area was perseverance.  Can we endure through some things…by the time He had covered these four you could have carried me out of church because I was totally spent.
            When I got home and thought on the devotional, I kept saying I was going to write a devotional on “effecting change,” but as I sat down I kept hearing the scripture even the dogs get the crumbs.  I knew it that moment God was challenging me.  As I read the entire story pertaining to that portion of the verse, all I could hear is would I have been able to respond to being called a dog in the same way, or would I have lost it?  The flesh and the New York portion of me would have wanted to say, “Who are you calling a dog?” I would love to say that the spirit man in me would have been strong enough to take it and respond as the Gentile woman did, but I have to be truthful and say I do not know that on any given day that the spirit man would have been able to override the little militant midget as my sister calls me.  Then I thought what is holding me back from getting answers.  Many times God is dealing with our “Stuff” our baggage, or maladjustments and our ill-mannered tempers.  He could be dealing with our hurts and our insecurities, or our discrepancies and our wrong thinking. If the Gentile woman had flown off the handle and told Jesus where to go and how to get there as many of us would have tried to do, would He have felt the need to heal and deliver? Probably not.  Many of us have asked God why isn’t He answering, or why hasn’t He moved, but we have never considered it could be that God needs for us to respond better to situations concerning Him.  He wants us to be able to stand even when He does not spoil us and tell us yes, or even when we feel the circumstances in which He is allowing us to be in are unfair, or even what we would consider demeaning.
            What are you waiting God to give you an answer about? Whatever it may be have you approached it with the right attitude and the right demeanor?  Could God be trying to build character with you, or clean out some areas that the past has cluttered up? Only God knows for sure, but whatever the circumstances you made find yourself in, waiting for God to answer, know that God’s plan is never to hurt or harm us, but only to grow us and get us to a better place. For many of us God is trying to get us to understand the value of humility and reverence.  For others it is about our priorities and our standards, no matter what work has to be done, let God get’er done so that He can get’er done, by answering the petitions before Him.